


Her Hands

by Settiai



Category: Hand of Isis - Jo Graham
Genre: Gen, One Shot, Religion, Sisters, Yuletide, Yuletide 2015, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 02:21:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5479703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Settiai/pseuds/Settiai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They are her hands, each one reflecting a single facet of what makes her whole.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Her Hands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mari4212](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mari4212/gifts).



The first time that Cleopatra held her son in her arms, it was if she had found a part of herself that she hadn't even realized was missing.

It wasn't truly surprising, if she was to think about it. She had known since she was a girl that the aspect of Isis she embodied was that of the Mother of the World. Even as a maiden, she had envied what others her own age had, what she could never enjoy. She had watched with longing the swollen bellies of other women, staring at the babes held in their arms.

She had wanted nothing more than to come into her power, to embrace the love that the gods had seen fit to imbue her with. As her own body had become large, the child she had wanted for longer than she could remember growing inside her, it had been easy to pretend for a moment that perhaps she could finally have what she had dreamed of for so long.

But she was a servant of the gods, one of the Hands of Isis on the earth. She was the Mother of the Earth made flesh, mourning what was lost and bringing forth the future. That was her power. And it was both her strength and her weakness.

She was a Ptolemy. She knew her duty. No matter how much she wanted to cling to Caesarion, spending her days in the nursery and reveling in the power she had finally come into, her life was not her own. She was Queen. She was Isis.

Her life belonged to Egypt. To her people. Not to herself. She knew who she was, and she knew what she must do.

So instead of letting her son nurse, she bound her breasts and ignored the pain that she felt. When he cried with hunger, she stood by and watched as another fed him. And when the time came for her to travel to Upper Egypt, to embrace the politics that kept Egypt alive, she ignored the pain in her heart and left her son behind in Alexandria.

It was a Mother's duty to make sacrifices for the sake of her children. All of her children.

*

It did not surprise Iras to learn what aspect of Isis she reflected. It made sense, truly, when she was to think about it.

Of course Cleopatra saw the Mother of the World, with Horus at her breast. Iras was not blind. She had seen the longing in her sister's eyes when they walked through the market of Bubastis, as her gaze was drawn time and time again to the young women with children on their hips. It was not a longing that she herself felt, but she understood wanting more than what fate allowed.

And the fact that Charmian saw Isis Pelagia, young and beautiful, was just as fitting. Iras loved her sister, nothing would change that. But she did not understand her. She could not comprehend what it was about bare chests and pert breasts and quicksilver smiles that drew her sister's attention, time and time again. She did not see the appeal of the physical, not when it was the mind that showed who a person truly was.

Still, Charmian did. That was what mattered, in the end.

They were the Hands of Isis, her sisters and she. Charmian was the Lover. Cleopatra was the Mother. And Iras, she was Isis before the Veil.

It was fitting.

Iras knew that her sisters pitied her, although they would never say so to her face. They could never live the life that she did. It was not in their nature. That was why they could not understand that it was not a lonely life for her. She did not want what they had. She could not want what they had.

Cleopatra and Charmian needed others in their lives in order to feel whole. Children. Lovers. All she needed was her sisters at her side. She loved just as strongly as them, perhaps more, but she did not need others in her life to share it with as they did.

They were more than enough for her.

*

Try as she could, Charmian could not help but feel grief for her sisters at times.

She was Egyptian. She understood duty, and she embraced it fully. But she loved her sisters with every breath in her body, more than life itself, and she could not help but want the best for them.

They would never want her pity. They were Egyptian as well, Ptolemies just as she was. Cleopatra and Iras understood sacrifice and duty as well as she did. They had made the same bargain that she had, all those years ago, standing in a darkened shrine as Isis appeared from the shadows.

It was their choice, just as it had been hers, to embrace who they were and truly become the avatars of Isis. Their lives belonged to the gods, and it was not their place to question.

Still, she wished at times that she could have protected them in some way. That there was a way for Cleopatra to embrace motherhood in the way she wanted in her heart, deeper and more all-encompassing than her position as Queen allowed. That Iras did not have to be alone, forsaking mortal love for something more intangible.

It was not her place, and she knew it. Love was a weakness for all mortals, though, herself included. And she did love them, both of them, with everything she had. Which meant she wanted them to have everything they wanted, even what they could not have.

Perhaps especially what they could not have.

They had given themselves over to Isis willingly, the three of them. She, Cleopatra, and Iras. They had put their lives in Her hands forever, for the sake of Egypt.

Charmian did not regret it, not for her own sake, and she knew that her sisters did not either. Not truly. It was not their way, any more than it was hers.

And yet sometimes, just sometimes, she wished for what could never have been.


End file.
